The afternoon had started in a colorful manner, with Orange flying sticks in the almost full house and soon after the beginning of the first match, the Koreans Lee Hyo Jung and Lee Yong Dae had given their home crowd their first victory of the day.

It was also the last as Denmark was to have one of it’s greatest days ever. And if Morten Frost had earlier on given his thoughts about three potential wins, the Danish coach couldn’t be more right… but it took everyone by surprise.

The match between Lee Chong Wei and Peter Gade started out as both wanted to gauge their respective forms. Long rallies, long and different types of strokes. Some net shots were very precise on either side, and hand in hand, they scored one point one after the other with no more than two points difference at all times.

The pace slowly accelerated towards the end of the game, where Lee Chong Wei took the lead 18/16. Keeping patient and still moving very fast on court, the Dane kept using a lot of variation, always avoiding to lift the shuttle, playing at net height or attacking the shuttle.

Back at 18/18, he was then lucky on his 20th point when his drive hit the net and fell right behind it, but the game point was a master piece, when he anticipated Chong Wei’s drop at the net and performed an impressive back hand drop. The Malaysian then could only nod and watch the shuttle land on the floor, giving Gade the first game..

The second game started out quite differently, with Lee much more in control and Gade slowly let go, playing at a much lower pace, obviously keeping some strength for the decider. Chong Wei didn’t have to force his natural talent to end the game 21/10.

As expected, the third game started out as a fierce battle with Gade taking an early lead 5/2. A small amount of Malaysian spectators were entertaining a very crowded stadium, yet it was the Dane who led the way to 11/6 at half time, then 13/7.

The Malaysian scored on a serve that passed over Gade’s anticipation at the net, but a second later, he was sending a shuttle out. The best point of the match saw Lee save some unexpected shuttles before Gade ended an amazing rally with a smash.

The next point had him kill the shuttle at the net to take a 18/15 lead. Then, 20/16. Lee saved one match point, then a second one before Gade nailed it, and finally beat one of the two players he had been waiting to beat for a long time.

“I’m really thrilled that I won today. It was a tough match with difficult conditions especially on one end. And just like the quarter finals, I threw away the second game, and it paid off. It’s not usually the way I play, but in this case, it was the best solution as I couldn’t have fought at the same pace for three games,” said Gade.

“This feels really great as one of my target for 2009 was to beat Lee Chong Wei and Lin Dan. I couldn’t hope for a better start in the year, with a semi in Malaysia and now, a title here. But now, I feel very tired mentally and physically and I just want to get home to my family.”

Lee Chong Wei was just sorry he couldn’t give more : “My legs were just too heavy for me on court today. I still gave my best but Peter was stronger today,” said the Malaysian, who now looks forward to the All England, in less than 6 weeks.

Gade’s win was a clear boost for Tine Rasmussen, who had watched her friend’s unexpected success while warming up. But the match that she played against Pi was probably not the best one she ever played.

Yet the outcome was to please the tall Dane. In straight games, she was able to beat her French opponent, 21/19 – 21/19, with similar fate in both games, managing to stop Pi when she was crawling back in each game.

“This feels really special. Regardless of the money, or the ranking points, I am just thrilled that I won here, against Pi, who is playing with a lot of confidence lately. The game wasn’t the best of all, as we were both making mistakes because of the string drift in the Hall today and the fast shuttles. But I kept telling myself that she was experiencing the same problems and that I should just keep on trying. And am glad it turned out to be in straight games, as it would have been very difficult to play a third game – I feel exhausted,” said Tine.

The most surprising upset of the day was the defeat of Korea’s Lee Yong Dae and Jung Jae Sung. Not many would have put some money on the Danes Mathias Boe and Carsten Mogensen, who had never beaten their opponents of the day.

Yet on court, in spite of the very loud support from their crowd, the Korean pair was just very frustrated not to be able to attack. The first game was a nightmare, lost 12/21, the Danes anticipated well and denied the Koreans any space to attack.

“That was our plan and it worked perfectly in the first game. And then, in the second, we were very close but we ended up as winners. I still can’t believe it, even it has been few minutes we’ve won now,” said Boe. “We had had some good results in the past, but this is of course very special to us, as we’ve just beaten by the best Koreans, on their home ground. I sure didn’t expect that to happen,” added the Dane.

The last trophy was awarded to Chien and Cheng who beat Korea’s Lee Kyung Won and Lee Hyo Jung in straight games.